


The Forge of Fate

by Silver33650



Series: Tarnished Ghosts and Polished Shadows [8]
Category: Fortnite (Video Game)
Genre: Betrayal, Blackmail, Child Abuse, Coming of Age, Curses, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Hostile Corporate Takeovers, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Nightmares, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Patricide, Spies & Secret Agents, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27619181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silver33650/pseuds/Silver33650
Summary: A tale of family bonds, growing up with gifts, and spy organizations. ...Oh, you've heard this one already? No, only side A. Lift the needle away, flip the record over, and listen to side B.
Series: Tarnished Ghosts and Polished Shadows [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1923190
Kudos: 11





	The Forge of Fate

**Author's Note:**

> oh look who finally got top billing despite the fact that I've been working on this since August
> 
> or at least, that's what the notes on my phone tell me. but really it started when I first saw the loading screen for The Device event. there's a story here, I thought, but we'll never get to hear it because Fortnite has a lore, not a plot. so I started writing "The Gears of Fate" mostly out of spite, and while I liked what I came up with, it started to bother me that I only did one side of the story. so even as I was working away on everything else, I started putting this one together scene by scene, piece by piece, and now I think it's finally whole.

When Midas was three, he noticed the gold on his fingers for the first time. 

He tried shaking it off, thinking it was dust from one of the expensive bindings of the books in the library where he spent most of his time. But when that didn't work, he tried wiping it, then washing it, all with increasing desperation. Nothing worked. So he asked his father, who grabbed his tiny hands and spread out his fingers for inspection. 

"I was afraid of this. You've used your power so much that you're turning to gold," his father said. He frowned, then rummaged in his desk while muttering something about ancient kings and curses and using magic instead of science. But Midas wouldn't remember any of that; what he would remember was when his father finally pulled out a pin and poked it into one of the gold specks on Midas' fingers. Nothing happened. His father frowned. "This presents a problem. It might kill you one day."

"Kill me?" Midas squeaked. 

"Yes. See how your body doesn't react to the pin? That's because it's dead tissue. Just gold now." His father wrote down some notes. "I will have to make something else. Something new, something better."

Midas had nightmares that night. About a reaper chasing him with a golden scythe. 

* * *

When Midas was five, he turned a living creature to gold for the first time. 

A tiny gnat to start with, hovering on the tip of his finger, where the gold specks were clustering into a larger dot. Midas concentrated, and the gnat was gilded, becoming a tiny golden grain of rice. His father took it and smiled. His father never smiled. 

Midas would work his way up to harder creatures. A fly. A spider. A moth. A mantis. And every time, he felt worse and worse when he felt them stop struggling. When the gold took them for good, and the manic grin on his father's face appeared. 

Midas wanted to stop, but his meals depended on completing assignments, and he had never failed once. Mostly because his father refused to let him leave until it was done, but still. After, he would run to the library- one of the few places in the house he was actually permitted to go- and lock himself inside. He'd collect a stack of books for the day and read them all in the big armchair next to the window with the best view. He played the record player with the volume down very low and enjoyed the natural light and sometimes looked outside and wondered if it was just like the books he read. 

He had nightmares in those days. About being trapped in a forest, a desert, a jungle- places he'd only seen in books- and being chased by squadrons of angry gilded creatures. 

* * *

When Midas was seven, he heard another set of footsteps in the house for the first time. 

"Backup plan," his father called her, the unseen woman living upstairs. "No reason for you to meet the carrier. But when the time comes, I trust you'll be a good big brother." He laughed. "Gold and jewels. I'll never have to worry about funding again. They'll regret kicking me out."

So Midas waited patiently, wondering what his little sibling would be like. He devoured all the books in his father's library about siblings, fiction and nonfiction alike, in any language he could decipher. He wondered if they would look similar or completely different. He wondered if they would have the same interests. He wondered if they would be subjected to the same kinds of tests. Probably. 

It was a few months after he turned eight that his sister was born, and a few months more before he was able to see her, tucked in her crib. And Midas found that his father was right, as her tiny fingers gripped his. He would be the best big brother. 

That night he slept soundly, dreaming of all the adventures they would have together. 

* * *

When Midas was nine, he decided he'd had enough. 

His sister was not like him. Her touch produced no change in any object, no matter how hard she concentrated. Even Midas had been changing things before he was a toddler. His sister cried and cried as their father shouted, and Midas earned a slap every time he tried to sneak her food. "She has to _learn_ ," their father insisted, and Midas' nightmares were filled with his father's angry face. 

So Midas decided to leave for good.

He tried to sneak her out of the house, but his father was always watching, and he was caught immediately. He chased Midas through the house and cornered him in the basement. Midas grabbed his father's arm and channeled all of his hatred into his touch, and the gold slid out of his fingers and wrapped his father so tightly that he was silenced forever. Midas looked at the statue he had sculpted from his rage and found himself shaking. Then he heard his sister crying, and he snapped out of it. He ran upstairs, into her room, and told her they needed to leave, but she refused to move, crying and crying. 

He hesitated. Control, he told himself. Control. 

He pulled her out of bed and carried her outside, and nothing bad happened. They left, and they never went back. 

* * *

When they were picked up on the street not long after, Midas told them he was eleven, and they believed him, which was good because he needed to be an adult as quickly as possible but he knew he wouldn't be able to pass for much older than that. 

The orphanage made him go to school, after he was tested in all the usual ways. For lice, for sensory impairments- turned out he needed glasses- and lastly, of course, for intelligence. He was promptly labeled as gifted. In most areas, at least; he had an unfortunate weakness for math. Particularly story problems. 

_If Steve and Bobby each have ten dollars and each give half of their money to Susan, how much money does Susan have?_ Answer: _I come by and turn the money to gold so that its value is increased tenfold. Now we're all rich._ That had only earned him a big red X and a note to "see me after class." Apparently story problems didn't require story solutions, especially when they were tongue-in-cheek. 

But he excelled at every other subject, and his teachers judged him a good student, if somewhat haughty. "You should start thinking about your future," they told him. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And he never had an answer. He knew what he wanted to accomplish: a safe and happy childhood for his sister, to better control how and when he turned things to gold so that he had a chance of even doing the former, and maybe to have a record player of his own so he could listen to his favorite music whenever he pleased. But none of those things were careers. Were they? 

Midas had restless dreams in those days. About his sister falling into a pit, and him running in place and never being able to catch her. 

* * *

When everyone thought Midas was thirteen, he took his sister on a trip for the first time. 

"Trip" was a bit of an exaggeration. But she was becoming a bit of a handful, being cooped up indoors all the time at the orphanage. So with a bit of bribery, he got permission to go out for a little while, and they went down to the bus stop and took it out of the city. Him holding her hand the whole time, pointing out things they passed with the other; her taking everything in with wide eyes. 

They explored a little park, and she chased birds and squirrels and butterflies and slid down the path into a puddle. They waded along the river and skipped stones. Then twilight came, and they caught fireflies on their way back to the bus stop. But she didn't want to go home yet, and even though he'd promised to be back by dark, they stayed and bought ice cream from the concession stand and found a secluded spot to do some stargazing while they ate, until she started to fall asleep and he had to carry her back. 

And even though he had to endure quite a scolding when he got back, he slept soundly, dreaming of all the other places he would take her in the future. 

* * *

When everyone thought Midas was fifteen, he took his sister to the new park in the city for the first time. 

He'd been able to buy them an apartment on their own, paid for by a few golden items each month and some blackmail that produced the forged documents saying they were cared for by a guardian. But it was really just the two of them. Midas had learned to cook and clean and deflect any requests to see their parents when strangers knocked on the door. He'd learned to braid hair so that his sister looked presentable enough for school. And he'd learned that he needed a better plan for the future than "turn things to gold until everything works out." But the details were still up in the air. 

For today, however, they were just siblings having a day to themselves. Him: a teenager playing at being an adult. Her: a little girl desperate for some fresh air. Him: sitting on a bench keeping one eye on his watch and the other on her: standing in line for the tallest slide, the smallest among the children brave enough to climb the ladder. Both of them: getting bored quickly. Him: deciding it was safe enough to take a stroll around the park; her: impatient but determined enough to prove that she wasn't too little for the big kid slide. 

He walked the winding paths through the gardens not fully grown, too freshly planted to be impressive yet. People stopped at regular intervals on the sidewalk to gawk regardless, and he weaved between them, attracting several raised eyebrows at his attire, too formal for a weekend outdoors. But it made him look older, and that was what mattered. Eventually, he tired of their questioning gazes and found a secluded area where only a few bushes and gangly trees sat, a far too ordinary scene for anyone to examine too closely. 

It was there that he found the butterfly, or at least, that was the best way he could think of to describe the curious crack in the air that he'd discovered. Its wings stretched as he reached for it, exposing a gap in midair. He could still see his surroundings past it, but the area was warped, somehow. When his finger touched it, everything around him melted away with the sound of shattering glass, and he found himself in a very strange, very dark building. 

There was a light down the hallway, fuzzy as if its source wasn't steady. He followed it into a room adorned with several screens, and before them all was a figure, surveying them. It turned when he reached the doorway, even though he was certain he hadn't made any noise. The figure was wearing a mask, and it tilted its head at him. _Well well,_ it said, its voice more oil spill than speech. _What do we have here?_

He wanted to leave, but it was at his side in an instant, grabbing his wrist with its strange hands to see his golden fingers. _Ah, it's a baby ghost!_ the figure said, delighted. The eyes of its mask seemed to glow brighter. _Chomp chomp, little golden ghost! Caught too early, I'm afraid._ It released him and tapped its fingers together, regarding him with its head still tilted. Calculating. Debating. _Can't have my star engineer grow up without a parent. No, no, that will not do. Back you go. Though I'm afraid you'll be a bit late._ It tapped its cheek thoughtfully. _And with a souvenir, to wit._ It vanished, melting like dripped tar, then reappeared holding a mug with a curious symbol. _You can take that home, little ghost,_ the figure crooned, patting his shoulder. _See you in... two decades, give or take. Off you go._

And then there was another shattering of glass, although something about this sound felt strangely more sinister than the last, and he was back in the park, still gripping the mug with its circular emblem, and the sun was so low in the sky that his heart dropped. _Jules._ Her name, on a loop, filling his mind, as he dashed around the park in a daze, unsure of where the playground was, too worried to properly chart his path. The park looked so different in the twilight, the trees casting long shadows across the ground. 

Then his phone rang, displaying an unknown number. He ignored it once, then twice, but picked up on the third ring to hear her voice. "Where are you?" she squeaked, and his heart tore in two. "I'm in the sandbox and I don't see you anywhere."

"Stay put," he said, and stood still long enough to get his bearings. The playground, the playground... he needed to go south, and he did, trying not to break into an outright run but taking uncomfortably long strides regardless. The park was nearly empty by now, anyway. 

"Where were you?" she demanded, in that petulant tone only a child can effect and that no adult can resist answering, no matter how obliquely. He told her he got lost and apologized, and then they got ice cream on the way back to the apartment, although he didn't eat much of his. 

He didn't sleep much, either. Haunted by the figure in the gas mask, stalking his dreams for years. Until it melted into the background, hidden in the long shadows of nightmares that dissipated upon waking. 

* * *

When everyone thought Midas was seventeen, he started university. 

He drove back and forth to campus to keep an eye on his sister, who had graduated from "troublemaker" to "existential threat to household objects." Her "why" phase had been unbearable to the point that he finally snapped "don't ask questions you don't want an answer to," at her. It had stopped the questions, thankfully, but had caused this entirely different problem. 

She took apart things in the apartment at random and made them into other things. Things that squeaked and clanged and occasionally made animal noises that scared the living daylights out of him before he realized it was just another machine. He'd burned his arm pouring coffee when what appeared to be a giant hornet appeared over the sink. His sister snatched it out of the air and pressed its stinger to a piece of paper. "It's just a pen," she said. "A flying pen! Isn't it neat?"

And it was, but... fuck, he could've used a bit more notice about the damn thing. He didn't buy her ice cream for that one. For every five benign machines she built, there was always one that drove him up a wall. He found the peacock that was also a toaster incredibly useful for breakfast, but the cricket that chirped about any slight change in the weather, even while he was trying to write a paper? That one could go. Although he had a feeling there was a bit of an ulterior motive at work there, as he could tell that his sister despised the noise the typewriter made. 

Sure enough, she made her move not long after, and while he did appreciate the improvements she made, he began to come to terms with the fact that his best chance of keeping anything in one piece around the house was to buy things that she couldn't take apart. So he stuck with older things, untouched by technology, that made her groan and call him old-fashioned. But at least those things didn't turn into noisy little robots. 

In those days, machines even haunted Midas' dreams. Wielding lightning in their hands, trying to strike him down and trap him forever. 

* * *

When everyone thought Midas was nineteen, he started working for Ghost. 

He'd found the company at the college career fair while wandering aimlessly, its strange circular symbol a match to the one on his favorite mug, and used his power to impress the man working the booth. But what he really wanted to show off was his sister's brain; though the brochure was vague, he felt certain that this place was somewhere that could benefit from her talent someday. And yet, the board of directors wasn't impressed until they saw what _he_ could do. 

A mistake on his part. Of course businessmen would care only for money. Midas promised that one day their net worth would be all of it and they were so plainly swayed, even with the conditions attached. 

His sister had been in a bad mood after the meeting. "Someday I'll build a better bird," she swore. "And it'll be _silver._ So there." She stuck out her tongue, and he smiled. Perhaps he should've aged up Jules as well. But no, he thought, remembering how tiny she had been. That never would have worked. 

He shared his first day with another man, who extended his hand with a big grin. "John," he said, "but growing up a lot of people called me Jonesy. You?"

"Midas. Like the myth."

John eyed Midas' hands as their handshake ended. "How much like the myth?"

Midas tapped the paper on John's desk and turned it to gold. John picked it up, incredulous, then frowned at its blank surface. "My account password was on there."

"Call help desk."

Despite this rocky first meeting, the two became fast friends, mostly because they sat across from each other and John wouldn't shut up. John made friends with everyone, but Midas mostly kept to himself, although he did enjoy having someone to vent with because Ghost had this habit of hemorrhaging money. Even worse was their habit of completely losing track of money, which Midas found infuriating. Then incredibly suspicious. He tried asking John, who shrugged. "Are you sure you didn't get the math wrong? Although, I did hear something really weird in the break room. There's that woman who always refills her coffee at ten thirty. Maybe ask her?" 

John certainly was a valuable person to have around. It would take time for Midas to untangle this web, and even more time to organize enough information to form the argument he needed to get the job he really wanted. But it was time he had. Time he would make good use of. 

Time that he tried to spend with his sister, helping her with her machines. Although she wasn't fond of his assistance, rolling her eyes and sighing and telling him to go away. Any time he asked her to explain something, her answers were always readily given, with the ease of an expert who doesn't even realize the level of complexity being described.

But there were plenty of areas where she was lacking; namely, in interpersonal relations. The politics of human interactions were inconsequential to her. He found that refreshing. Then worrisome. This was a girl who could be crushed in the real world, where kindness was an afterthought and manipulation was rampant. There were all sorts of villains hiding out there, like the one that lurked in his dreams when he thought things were going well. He could handle the monsters, but he feared she could not. 

In those days, his dreams were about being lost in a maze, where voices he couldn't make out taunted him on every side. 

* * *

When everyone thought Midas was twenty-one, he had his first hangover. 

He awoke with a nasty headache and stumbled out of his room. He tripped over nothing and almost fell trying to sit down at the table. His stomach was roiling and the thought of food was positively nauseating. He could barely remember the night before. Fuzzy faces of his coworkers, toasting each other and taking shots. He vaguely remembered getting a taxi. But there wasn't much else. 

His sister sat down across from him and poured cereal. He checked his watch, hoping he wouldn't be late for work, but it had stopped. He fumbled to unlatch the clasp and ended up shaking it off his wrist, then had trouble concentrating hard enough to determine where the battery lid could be. His sister munched on her cereal, smirking. Finally, he handed it over, but she shook her head. And that was the wrong thing to do. 

He had never gotten angry with her before. Strict, tense, demanding, yes, but not this haze of rage that narrowed his already-diminished vision. He yelled at her until she ran out of the room and his headache became so immense that he ended up taking the day off and napped on the couch. 

She was gone when he awoke. 

He tore apart the apartment. Opened every door, looked beneath every piece of furniture. Called her phone dozens of times, but he could tell she declined every one. So he got in his car and drove down every street in the city, and when that didn't work, he searched the outskirts in wider and wider circles. He finally spotted her bike at a little diner off the highway. He burst through the door and called her name. 

They shouted at each other in the diner until the owner threw them out, and then they shouted at each other in the car the whole way home. They shouted at each other in the living room and both went to bed angry. But their spat didn't last through breakfast, and they reconciled over waffles and ice cream, which was far too much sugar so early in the day but neither of them minded. 

Which was a good thing, because Midas' nightmares had been filled with a face he hadn't thought of in years. Of a figure with strange proportions wearing a gas mask, its strange fingers wrapped around his sister's shoulders. 

* * *

When everyone thought Midas was twenty-three, he became a proper spy. 

In the end, it had been a short conversation. One meeting with one executive, one envelope filled with all the information he'd compiled. One question: "What happened to Pleasant Park?" 

The man sitting across from him had blanched, then turning green as he flipped through the papers. "I'll get the transfer approved immediately."

"Best do one for John Jones as well," Midas said, and saw himself out. 

And not a moment too soon, for it was around that same time that his sister went away to boarding school, which gave him much more freedom to take on missions. He traveled the world and met many useful people over the years. A bulky man always stuck with odd jobs. A girl in a record shop who moonlighted as an Internet personality. A strange cat with an impossible amount of muscle mass that unsettled the shelter he'd been kept at. Ghost wound its way into a variety of organizations, and always was someone needed to capitalize on the opportunity. 

And they weren't the only ones who paid well for intel, though as his employer, he felt he owed it to them first. He had plenty of contacts in rival organizations, with Brutus chief among them. "It pays to have people on both sides," he said, but the second rule was never far from his mind: _always assume you're being lied to._ Midas took no chances trusting others for his information; it paid much better to have firsthand accounts, even if a bit of deception was required. 

Midas could steal anything from anywhere. Items, people, it never mattered. And often he couldn't resist leaving a calling card, in case someone wanted to know who to blame for their misfortune. Not very inconspicuous, but he was too skilled to be caught anyway. He became notorious amid the intelligence community for the way he could sneak around undetected. The golden ghost, they began to call him. How very appropriate. He inspected his reflection with a smirk, taking in his golden hands and golden eyes. (When had that happened?) He supposed there were upsides to dying by inches. 

As his infamy grew, so too did his reputation at Ghost, increasing his responsibilities but not necessarily the amount of respect he was afforded. More missions, more reports, more planning. And his little sister grew as well. Into a smart, determined young woman, of whom he couldn't be prouder. No matter what he was doing- whether it was breaking and entering or employing dubious interrogation tactics or committing grand theft auto and tearing down the streets of some city- he always responded to her calls. He had dreams of all the things they would build together, if time would just move fast enough to get there. 

And then, all at once, it did. 

* * *

When everyone thought Midas was thirty, he decided it was time to stop messing around. 

Ghost was still doing what it did best: spinning its wheels, not actually accomplishing anything in favor of not rocking the boat. He was so, so tired of that. This place had been mismanaged for far too long, and with his sister finally hired and happily building her gadgets, it was finally time to change that. After all, who had transformed the company from a struggling business into a flourishing corporation? Who had obtained the information that powered their best technology? Who had kept them afloat, then drove them to the top? Certainly not these pathetic chairmen. 

So he called the board of directors into the executive conference room and brought Brutus with him for good measure. Midas sat at the head of the table while they all filed in, their gazes shifting uneasily as they took seats at random. When all the chairs were filled, Midas cleared his throat and began his best caper yet. 

"You may have heard that a new investor has been buying up stock in the company." Nods around the table, bobbing their worried faces. "There is no need for concern. I'm pleased to announce that the investor in question is me." Relief on every face, short-lived as it would be. His lips twitched, but he knew he couldn't ruin this moment. "As I now own all available shares, I'd like to inform you all that I've elected myself president of the company. For my first official act, everyone in this room, save myself and Brutus here, is fired. Get out."

There was silence. Then shouting, as everyone tried to speak at once. Threatening litigation, criminal investigations, involvement with the authorities. Nothing that more money wouldn't solve, but they kept at it. Midas glanced at Brutus and sighed, kicking his feet onto the table and drawing his revolver. A bang, and the chandelier above the table shattered, showering everyone with shards of glass and forcing them to shield themselves from the debris. 

Midas flicked his gun to expose the chamber and loaded another bullet. Purely for dramatic effect, since there were still plenty of rounds inside. He shut it with another flick of his wrist and aimed the barrel toward the ceiling, resting it not quite against his head to avoid burning his hair. "Do I need to repeat myself?" 

He did not. 

Later, after he'd picked out a new board of directors who were a bit more diverse than just old men, Midas asked Brutus to pick out a new light fixture for the boardroom. "Gold or not, I'll fix it up if need be," he added. For the time for modesty had passed; there was nothing left to lose. He was free to have his net worth be all of it, if he so chose, and that was one promise from long ago that he was eager to finally fulfill. Ghost was his, now. 

When he finally moved into his new office at the top of the building, a white package was waiting on his desk, tied primly with a purple bow. Inside were two things. One, a card, bearing a message in thick black ink. _Congratulations on your hard-earned promotion. Looking forward to what you do from here on. Best regards!_ No signature, but he flipped it over, scowled at the symbol there, and threw it away. 

The other object was a stress toy in the form of a purple cube. He squeezed it, wary, but it seemed perfectly normal. Yet some evenings, when he worked past sundown, he swore it lit up with strange runes at random intervals, always vanishing as soon as he looked at it squarely.

"Is this some kind of joke?" he asked Brutus about it, finally. But Brutus had no idea, and Midas felt silly for even bringing it up. Just his imagination, of course, mixed with the increased stress he was now under. Nothing more. 

Yet in his dreams he looked into a mirror and saw himself wearing all black, his hair bleached white and his eyes glowing purple, a sadistic grin plastered on his face. 

* * *

When everyone thought Midas was thirty-one, he nearly forgot his sister's birthday. 

It was a milestone, which made him feel all the worse. He'd been pouring over the latest reports on the anomaly, when John came in and admitted that he'd popped the question and was now in need of a best man. Midas had readily agreed, and they'd talked for a while about weddings and work and suddenly it was nearly dark and he was alone in the elevator on the way to the ground floor. 

But he did make it, and he hoped she would remember that. Just like he would remember the woman he'd passed on the way in, who had a cell phone case decorated with a symbol that made him bite his tongue in anger. 

He bought his sister ice cream, and himself a scotch, but she was already too tired to eat much of it and they left without either of them finishing. They looked up at the stars on their way home, and she pointed at a spot in the sky where a streak of light hovered strangely. Almost as if it was completely stationary. "What a weird shooting star," she said, and he frowned. "Quite," he agreed, and resolved to have someone look into it in the morning.

* * *

When everyone thought Midas was thirty-two, he told his sister about the storm. 

Things had not been going well at Ghost. Lost: his best agent, and her trust along with it, leaving him with a despondent cat and a hollow feeling he hadn't anticipated. No way to communicate with her, all words tangled up into nonsense between them until they both stopped bothering. He tried to reach her in other ways, but those required losing others among his group. An entire drawer was now full of personnel files of agents in the loop, and John scowled every time he had to move another folder into it, thinking Midas wouldn't spot it, the poor fool. "You should get rid of that cube," John said at the end of every meeting, now that they had some idea of what it was, and Midas always gave some excuse because the fact was that he had _tried_. He had tried throwing it away, but it always reappeared on his desk, even if he tore it apart and scattered the pieces in every trash bin downtown. 

Still, the news wasn't all bad. Ghost had managed to acquire some artifacts from the loop. Chief among them was a purple glass bottle, filled with a curious ash that the lab couldn't fully analyze. The scientists presented theories, but only one made sense to him: this impossible carbon blend was linked to the unusual energy readings they'd picked up at random from the island. The storm, as it was known, always coming and going but never quite observable. Not directly, at least. 

"What, you're drinking at work now too?"

His sister's voice was vicious, as it was often, of late. An expected consequence as the volume of information he was keeping from her had increased, not to mention the other vices he'd picked up in an effort to keep himself sane. He set the bottle on his desk and folded his hands. "Could you shut the door, please?"

It was then that he told her, and gave her his challenge. "If the storm can be flipped," he said, pushing the bottle toward her, "then it can be fought. And if it can be fought, then it can be beaten. Defied."

She looked at him dubiously as she picked up the bottle. Stuck her finger inside and inspected the ash that coated it when she pulled it back out. "I'll try," she said, and he smiled. 

Some time after that, when the readings from that curious spot in space started deviating strangely toward zero, he received word of a bizarre communication. It spoke of time being twisted, of a singularity out of control. She begged for solutions, this person who only referred to herself as _P_. 

He reminded her about the meteor, and hoped it would be enough. 

* * *

When everyone thought Midas was thirty-three, he stepped down as president. 

Everything was going according to plan. Gained: the Zero Point, and with it, more insight into the island than ever before. A way to fight the storm, along with the privilege of leading the mission there himself. A task he would've scorned in the past, but now found inevitable. And lastly, a team to take to the island, all handpicked by him, with Jules as the star of the team. He was worried, of course, but it was mostly out of necessity; they'd be key to keeping the group on task and avoiding the nasty amnesia that plagued nearly everyone who entered the loop, reminding each other as often as possible to maintain focus. 

Lost: the vision in his right eye. He figured it was time to ditch the glasses for good. 

John was opposed to him going himself; he didn't think it was worth the risk. They spent long meetings arguing in Midas' office about the dangers involved. John pacing and yelling; Midas sitting patiently. John loved to bring up the cube. "We know Shadow is there, which means he's there, waiting. Do you have any idea what he's capable of?" And Midas would thank him for his concern until he left in a huff. Midas was going. End of discussion. 

He spared no expense on the celebration. He toasted the team and chatted with everyone, no matter what department they were from. It was strange, he reflected, to be on the other side of the farewells this time. But he couldn't seem to find his sister, and the high started to wear off as he wound his way through the crowd and slowly discovered that no one else had seen her either. The night of their greatest achievement, and she had gone missing? He tried her phone, but as expected, she didn't respond. 

Something was up. 

He left the party in a hurry, catching Brutus' eye with a knowing gaze on his way out, and sped home in a daze. It was dark and silent when he arrived. The air so still that he knew the place was empty, and yet he checked every room regardless, hoping for some indication of where she'd gone. 

There, on his desk, a folded paper was waiting, and there was only one person who could have left it. A card fell out onto the floor, but he read the letter first.

_I'm not going with you. You can find somebody else. I'm sure you can handle it._

He picked up the card, saw the symbol it bore, and collapsed into the chair. 

* * *

When Midas was betrayed by the one he loved most, he realized his greatest fear. 

It was not, as he expected, death or dismemberment or a detrimental deal. It was a fear he'd thought long discarded, now remembered and real. And even more terrifying was the possibility that he might forget it again.


End file.
